Preview

Beliefs About Christmas

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
552 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Beliefs About Christmas
Welcoming xmas
Opening the doors of the house at midnight, Christmas Eve is supposed to be good as it lets out the evil spirits. 'First Foots' are those that enter the house first, a darker haired man entering the house first on Christmas Day is a good sign, and if the first guest is a woman it is said to bring in bad fortune. A first foot bringing in an evergreen is considered a blessing. The first person to open the door on the morning of Christmas should shout and welcome 'Father Christmas'. Some people also believe that sweeping your threshold on Christmas sweeps away all the troubles.

Christmas Carols and Songs
It is considered unlucky to sing Christmas carols at any occasion other than Christmas. It is also considered unlucky to send carolers away empty-handed. There is a wrong notion regarding a custom known as Wassailing. This custom is originally related to honoring one's livestock and crop yield and even the sea(in some parts of Scotland) during Christmastime. Drinking toasts, lighting celebratory fires, firing in the air and playing games are all symbolic to this custom. Though, in recent times it has come to be recognised with getting drunk and singing carols at people's homes.
Christmas Food
It is believed that if you make a wish while stirring a Christmas pudding, it will come true. If you tell anyone about what you have wished for, it will not come true. If everyone in the family takes turns while stirring, it will bring good fortune to the family. Young girls, who are hoping to get married soon should also give a stir when the Christmas pudding is being cooked. It is also considered unlucky to cut into a Christmas cake before Christmas Eve and some portion of the cake should be kept till Christmas Day. Also, eating an apple on Christmas Eve is supposed to bring good health throughout the next year. Mince pies bring in good luck, so it should not be cut during Christmastime. The number of pies eaten at different households during Christmas
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Analysis: The Sacralization Of Christmas
    • 2401 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Analysis: The Sacralization Of Christmas

    Hey Virginia, there is more than just a Santa Claus. Nowadays, Americans have either forgotten or ignored Christmas traditions put in place over 1500 years ago. They would rather indulge in the gifts and shopping to please their family than sit back and enjoy the holiday. This new mindset has led Christmas, Hanukkah, and other seasonal festivals to lose their religious intent through the past centuries by the hands of both people and markets. The original purpose of Christmas, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, has been trampled and overshadowed by a marketeer’s interpretation of how to represent the holiday. Santa and snowmen have become the faces of Christmas, instead of the Son…

    • 2401 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Did St. Nicholas Came To The New World
    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Did St. Nicholas Came To The New World

    It later became popularly known by its first line “T’was the night Before Christmas”. As more immigrants came to America, they brought with them their own traditions of St. Nicholas. Decorating Christmas trees, hanging stockings and giving gifts are all traditions brought from the celebrations of St. Nicholas throughout…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Christmas During Colonial Times
    • 372 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Christmas During Colonial Times

    The plantation mansions festively donned their decorations, and large feasts were prepared. The foodstuffs of colonial Christmas celebrations were similar to today’s Christmas dinner. A ham, roast, or turkey was usually the main course, followed, of course, by pie and other dessert treats. The wealth of the family determined the extent of feasting. Christmas trees were not a part of the colonial Christmas celebrations, for they did not make it to the states until the middle 1800s. Christmas carols were sung during the season and were religious in nature. "Joy to the World" gained popularity in Virginia, as noted in many journals and historical records of the time.…

    • 372 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Christmas Memory By Truman Capote
    • 205 Words
    • 1 Page

    A Christmas Memory By Truman Capote

    Truman Capote in “A Christmas Memory” uses nostalgic anecdote to communicate that, though some may take them for granted, traditions bring people together by providing a normal routine to fall back upon when times get hard.…

    • 205 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Evolution Of Christmas
    • 1609 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Evolution Of Christmas

    Winston Churchill once said, “Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.” As the big day draws near, it is important to reflect on the roots of the global holiday as well as the direction in which it is heading. Christmas is a tradition rooted deep in the history of western society. It has undergone many changes since it’s earliest celebrations. Even today, the holiday is constantly changing. Each year brings new innovations to Christmas. In the dawn of the holiday, it was minor and focused on the birth of Jesus, the light of the world. In the 19th century, Christmas was a time of family and goodwill to mankind. Today, though there still remains aspects of religion and selflessness, more than ever it has become a holiday consumed by commercialism. It is a development that is not likely to go way any time soon.…

    • 1609 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Ban On Christmas In The 17th Century
    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Ban On Christmas In The 17th Century

    Christmas wasn’t always the popular holiday it is today. In fact, the well known puritans, in the 1600s actually banned it out of disgust and anger. Christmas nowadays is heralded, by most, as a joyous holiday. Those who don’t celebrate Christmas, but celebrate a different holiday around this time are still consumed by the beauty of the wintery season. However, some Americans do not celebrate Christmas- or any holidays for that matter and in fact look down on them as useless and frivolous in a Scrooge-like manner. It is perhaps from the puritans that this intolerance of holidays stems, just as the joy from Christmas comes from The Christmas Carol, by Dickens and religion. The Ban on Christmas in 17th century Puritan New England shaped the attitudes towards the…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Pagan and Christian Holidays
    • 1988 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Pagan and Christian Holidays

    Yule, a Pagan holiday, is celebrated around December 21-23. It is a time where the Goddess gives birth to the Divine Sun. He shall be both child and lover and father of the next child in the continuing cycle.[3] Christian religions modified this time of year as Christmas, celebrated on December 25th. Even the birth of the child, Jesus. For Pagans and Christians alike, it is a time of feasting and exchanging of gifts.[3] The symbols of this time of year are one in topping of the Yule trees with the Triple Moon (which symbolizes the Maiden, Mother, and Crone) or the pentagram (symbolizing the elements of nature and spirit).[1] After the Christianization of Yule, the star topping the tree was to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem and the Roman Catholics displayed angels symbols of the messengers atop the evergreen tree. Bells and food were hung and candles were lit for Spirits to join in the celebrations. The Yule log is an old tradition for Pagans where they would carve a circle with horns to represent the horned god, like Reindeer horns, and then set it on fire using a piece of last year’s Yule log. This…

    • 1988 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Christmas and Women
    • 1827 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Christmas and Women

    “It was not the hard work which he hated, nor the punishment and injustice. He was used to that before he ever saw either of them. He expected no less, and so he was neither outraged nor surprised. It was the woman: that soft kindness which he believed himself doomed to be forever victim of and which he hated worse than he did the hard and ruthless justice of men.” (Faulkner 158)…

    • 1827 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Personal Narrative: A Day At Christmas In America
    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Personal Narrative: A Day At Christmas In America

    “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way”, this melody always brings a warm comfort in my heart. They’re countless holiday songs that stay timeless and we nerve tire of hearing them year after year. I also find a sense of tranquility, as I hear the choir sing the angelic, Silent Night. From whimsical to spiritual, the sounds of Christmas enhance the experience each year.…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hanukkah
    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Hanukkah

    One religious practice associated with Hanukkah is the lighting of a single candle each of the eight nights of Hanukkah. “Each day, over an eight-day period, one more candle is lit on a nine-branched candelabrum-a special form of menorah-until, at the end of the festival, all are alight.” This practice is called the Lighting the Hanukkah Menorah. During the eight nights each member of the family gathers around the candles before lighting and recites a blessing. There are three blessings associated with Hanukkah. Two traditional blessings are recited each night and the third is a blessing of joy traditionally recited during all Jewish festivals, it is only recited the first time the Hanukkah menorah is lit. “Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us alive, and has preserved us, and enabled us to reach this time” (Katz, 2011). The lighting of the candles is used to commemorate the miricale of the Maccebees’ victory. The traditional story says that oil burned for over eight days and it should have only lasted one day. Another tradition asscociated with Hanukkah is the giving of a small gift each night from parents to their childern. This practise differs from Christmas gift giving by focussing more on knowledge of the tradition. Childern are tested on history of Hanukkah, and if they could answer the questions correctly they would receive a gift as a reward. Typically the reward would…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Christmas In Americ The First Industrial Revolution
    • 1705 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Christmas In Americ The First Industrial Revolution

    Christmas in America has had different meanings to many people through history. Farmers, workers, and religious adherents practiced their traditions in the public sphere in respective periods of time. However, the modern understanding of Christmas celebration stems from the experience of a growing middle class as it set out to define its identity. Christmas as a domestic, commercial holiday originates from the middle class engagement with the vehicles of the first industrial revolution and the subsequent adoption of a culture of consumerism. Rural farmers traditionally celebrated the end of the harvest and the beginning of the long winter with feasting and celebration at Christmas during the eighteenth century.…

    • 1705 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Why Do Traditions Ruining Christmas?
    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Why Do Traditions Ruining Christmas?

    With all the traditions that come with this time of year, there is one in particular that my friends and I have not celebrated since we started having kids and the holidays became all about them (thanks for ruining Christmas, kids). Every year, after the Rockefeller Center tree went up, we would gather as many of us as we could and venture into New York City. Some years we had as many as forty people; friends of friends added to the crowd. Our tradition was to first go down to Greenwich Village for a few drinks then uptown to Rockefeller Center, fighting holiday crowds all along the way. Afterwards we would cross over 5th avenue and go into St. Patrick's Cathedral for the pageantry that was Christmas.…

    • 1015 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Negative Effects Of Elf On A Shelf
    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Negative Effects Of Elf On A Shelf

    Realizing these dangers could save many problems with the holidays. No elf, no problem! Children have open, innocent minds with good intentions always at hand. With little doubt in anything that happens, Elf on the Shelf looks like a fun and festive way to kick off the holiday season. But as Dr. David Kyle Johnson says, children are affected in a couple of ways, including how they perceive reality and their attitudes toward their parents.…

    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Christmas(Process Essay)
    • 567 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Christmas(Process Essay)

    When you think back to childhood, your best memories often revolve around winter holidays. Sometimes they recall a very special Christmas gift, such as that much wished for electronic device or video game. More often, they remember good company and good times, family laughter over a game, hot chocolate and a hug while building a snowman, gifts that came without a price tag and that have become priceless with time. With a little thought and planning, you can still create and enjoy memorable holiday moments.…

    • 567 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Santa Clause tradition
    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Santa Clause tradition

    Christmas is a tradition for a majority of families across the United States. For my family it is a time for us to come together and appreciate the love of one another. Everyone gathered around a warm fire, drinking hot cocoa, singing Christmas carols, watching the Christmas lights glisten off the frosted ground, and opening presents at the break of dawn. So why do we bring a fictional character into this simply beautiful medley? Santa Clause shouldn’t be what families focus on during the Christmas season.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics